Our three products of the week support new year’s resolutions for better eating. Valentine’s Day is less than a month away, but in the interim, consider:
 
 
1. ANCIENT HARVEST: MICROWAVEABLE HEAT-AND-EAT QUINOA

January 16th is National Quinoa Day, so it follows that we’re starting out with this trending grain.

Many people we know have gotten into quinoa in a big way. While not in the grain family, quinoa is considered a whole grain*, which means it contains all of the essential amino acids†. It’s also gluten-free.

Some come quinoa the hard way, starting with buying bulk quinoa and washing it. Some buy the seeds pre-washed.

And others, like us, buy ready to microwave-and-eat quinoa from Ancient Harvest, in four microwavable varieties:

 
There is no easier, quicker, or tastier way to get quinoa on the table for grain bowls, sides, soups or stews.

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), pronounced KEEN-wa, is the Quechua (Inca) word for “mother grain” or “super grain.” Here’s more about this exceptional food.
 
Ancient Harvest has a nice selection of supergrains in different formats: different types of uncooked quinoa and quinoa breakfast flakes, supergrain pasta, even supergrain mac and cheese—all gluten free.

Discover more at AncientHarvest.com.
 
 
2. PEREG: HAWAIJ SPICE BLEND

If you enjoy cooking with spice blends like ras-el-hanout and za’atar, and want to try another Middle Eastern spice blend, we introduce you to hawaij (ha-WHY-idge), an ancient spice mixture used in Yemenite cuisine.

Yemeni immigrants brought the spices to Israel, and hawaij (alternately spelled hawaj, hawaij, hawayji, or hawayej) has become popular in Israeli cooking as well.

There are actually two distinct varieties of hawaij: one traditionally used in coffees and the other to season soups and other foods.

WebMD and other health sources cite the blend or cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, ginger and turmeric as outstanding sources of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and other beneficial nutrients‡.

Pereg Hawaij Blend for Soup is an aromatic mixture of cumin, turmeric, black pepper, cardamom, and cloves.

 
Pereg Hawaij Blend for Coffee is a warm-spice mixture of ginger, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon.

[1] Two of the four varieties of Ancient Harvest’s ready-to-eat, microwaveable quinoa varieties.

[2] Pereg introduces a Yemeni spice blend, hawaij, in varieties for coffee and soup.

[3] Organic dried blueberries and Montmorency cherries with 50% reduced sugar, from Stoneridge Orchards. Thanks to Snack Gator for the photos.

 
If you like playing with flavors, a jar for $5.50 opens up new vistas.

Find out more at Pereg-Gourmet.com.
 
 
3. STONERIDGE ORCHARDS: REDUCED-SUGAR DRIED BLUEBERRIES & CHERRIES

If you snack on dried fruit or add them to salads and baked goods, you may not be aware that some have sugar added to ensure a sweet experience. This is particularly true with dried berries.

If you care about added sugar, Stoneridge Orchards has a better options for you. The company has introduced its 50% Reduced Sugar product line, beginning with Dried Blueberries and Montmorency Cherries.

The berries remain rich with fiber and flavor, and preservative-free, gluten/allergen free and non-GMO.

To achieve 50% less sugar, non-caloric stevia is blended with cane sugar. The berries remain moist and plump: a delectable snack and ingredient.

For more information, visit StoneridgeOrchards.com.
________________

*Quinoa is not actually a grain (which is a cereal), but the seed of a leafy plant related to beets, chard and spinach. As with those vegetables, you can eat the leaves (although you’re not likely to find them in the U.S.). The part of the quinoa plant that we eat, the seed, is cooked like rice. Quinoa is gluten-free.

†Amino acids are organic compounds that combine to form proteins. Amino acids and proteins are the building blocks of life. The essential amino acids, a subgroup, cannot be made by the body; they must come from food. The nine essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine.

‡Yes, these are healthful ingredients, but you have to injust a lot of them to fight inflammation, aid digestion, lower blood sugar, fend off free radicals, etc.

[1] Beet and goat cheese with a twist: garlic couscous (photo courtesy Chef Adrianne).

[2] Pearl couscous, also called Israeli couscous (photo courtesy The Fitchen, which uses it in this couscous, spinach and mushroom recipe).

[3] Vermont Creamery’s crumbled goat cheese saves time (photo courtesy Vermont Creamery).

Beets and goat cheese are one of our favorite duos. We’re always game for a new recipe.

This one, a first course, was sent to us by Chef Adrianne Calvo, a creative Miami restaurateur (photo #1).
 
 
RECIPE: CHEF ADRIANNE’S ROASTED BEETS & GOAT CHEESE WITH GARLIC PEARL COUSCOUS

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 350°F. Rub the four beets with canola oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap each beer tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1-1/2 hours until fork tender. Meanwhile…

2. TAKE the last beet and boil half of it in 1 cup water for 30 minutes, or until the liquid becomes thickened. Take the other half and thinly slice it on a mandolin. Bake the slices for 30 minutes to make beet chips. Set aside to use as garnish.

3. UNWRAP the baked beets and allow them to sit for 45 minutes to 1 hour. In a small sauté pan, add the olive oil over medium heat, and the garlic slivers. Cook stirring often until the garlic begins to brown. Set the pan aside, including the olive oil.

4. SLICE the cooked beets into 1/4-inch-thick slices. In a large bowl, combine the cooked couscous, garlic and olive oil, parsley, goat cheese crumbles and balsamic vinegar. Toss. Top each beet ring with couscous mixture. Garnish with the beet liquid, beet chips and chives.
 
 
RECIPE HACKS

How To Make Goat Cheese Crumbles

You can purchase a log of fresh goat cheese, but in order for it to crumble you need to leave it in the fridge to dry overnight (be sure your fridge has no ambient aromas). Slice off what you need and put it on a plate. Crumble it with your fingers the next day.

We often use Vermont Creamery’s crumbled goat cheese (photo #3). There are four flavors:

 
Packaged Beets

If you don’t want to take the time to cook beets, look for vacuum-packed cooked beets like Love Beets.

They won’t have the texture and meatiness of roasted beets, and you won’t find large diameters, but they are tasty in of their own.

Love Beets and other brands also offer flavored beets, such as Honey & Ginger and Sweet Chili.
________________

*Pearl couscous, called Israeli couscous, is similar to regular couscous: pasta granules made from semolina or whole wheat flour. Pearl couscous is larger—the size of pearls—and thus has a slightly chewy texture, similar to barley. The granules are toasted rather than dried, giving it a savory flavor nuance.

The chai craze began sweeping across America some 15 years ago. It leaped to the mainstream from Indian restaurants and tea parlors,

The formal name of the tea in Hindi is masala (spiced) chai (tea*, from the Mandarin cha). It originated on the Indian subcontinent.

Americans shortened the term, and chai (CHY) it is. Its spices have been ported to sweets: bonbons, bread pudding, cake and cheesecake, cookies, fudge, marshmallows, muffins; in cocktails; in glazes for chicken and ham; and as a liquid for cooking oatmeal and rice pudding (check out these recipes).
 
 
WHAT IS CHAI?

Chai is black tea flavored with aromatic spices and herbs. The recipe is not fixed: Each vendor or home cook picks a proportion and ingredients to taste.

The “givens” are black tea, ginger, green cardamom pods, milk and sugar.

 
 
OREGON CHAI

There are numerous chai options on store shelves: tea bags, loose leaf tea, instant powdered mixtures and syrups.

Our current favorite is the concentrate from Oregon Chai because of its flexibility. The concentrate has no milk, allowing choice of fat percentage, lactose-free and plant-based milks. There are sugar-free and caffeine-free options.

As someone who likes calorie-free sweeteners and lactose-free milk, we needed to look no farther…although we’d love an slightly sweet Sugar Free version with less sucralose.

The hack is to change the proportions from 1:1 concentrate to milk to 1/3 concentrate and 2/3 milk.

Oregon Chai’s concentrates include Original plus:

 
There are also powdered mixes:

 
The line is Non-GMO Verified, USDA Certified Organic and Certified Kosher by OU.

The products are shelf-stable, to be refrigerated after opening.
 
 
THE EASIEST CUP OF CHAI

Simply open the container and mix equal parts of concentrate and milk. Then, heat it in the microwave or pour it over ice.

For more information visit OregonChai.com.

[1] Invite friends over for a chai tea party (photo courtesy Charles Chocolates).

[2] With Oregon Chai, it’s a snap. Just mix the concentrate with your milk of choice and heat in the microwave (photo courtesy Oregon Chai).

[3] Iced chai (photo courtesy Oregon Chai).

[4] Some of the chai tea spices: cinnamon, black peppercorns, cloves and green cardamom (photo courtesy 30 Minute Dinner Party).

THE HISTORY OF CHAI

Today’s masala chai is a relatively recent creation. The original masala chai is very different from the contemporary recipe.

That first version was an ancient Indian ayurvedic beverage—a cleansing spice tonic that did not include any tea (Camellia sinensis).

When the British began to establish tea plantations in Assam, in 1835, they added milk and sugar to their tea, as they did at home. At the time, tea was too expensive for most Indians and was largely grown for export (this is unfortunately true of other third-world crops, including coffee).

In the early 1900s, the British-owned Indian Tea Association began to promote tea consumption to Indian consumers. Because black tea was still an expensive ingredient, vendors used milk, sugar and spices—the ingredients of today’s masala chai—to create a flavorful drink while keeping costs down.

The drink’s popularity spread throughout India and became even more popular in the 1960s, when mechanized tea production made black tea affordable for the common man.
 
 
TEA TRIVIA

After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. Coffee takes third place.
________________

*The English word, tea, though, comes from the Hokkien Chinese tê.

[1] The classic pastrami sandwich: piled high on rye with bickles, cole slaw and Dr. Brown soda (photo courtesy P J Bernstein Deli | NYC).

[2] Pastrami on a roll with Swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato and red cabbage, watercress and mayonnaise (photo courtesy Dietz & Watson).

[3] With melted cheddar on a brioche roll (photo courtesy Gordon Ramsay Group).

[4] Thick-sliced on a baguette (photo courtesy Double R Ranch).

[5] What’s a pastrami sandwich without pickles? (photo © Natasha Breen | iStock Photo).

[6] Don’t forget the coleslaw! (photo LaCheryl CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0-license).

January 14th is National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day. The classic Jewish deli pastrami sandwich came to New York City with Romanian-Jewish immigrants in the latter half of the 19th century.

Check out the history of pastrami, below.
 
 
HOW IS PASTRAMI MADE?

Pastrami is spicy cured brisket of beef. The brisket is salt-brined, seasoned with herbs and spices, and hot smoked.

The typical pastrami spice-and-seasoning blend includes coriander seeds, dark brown sugar, granulated garlic, ground black pepper, ground cloves, kosher salt, smoked paprika and yellow mustard seeds.

The spiced, smoked pastrami is then chilled and steamed (it is often kept warm on a steam table). In New York, it is thinly sliced (sometimes medium, but never thick) and served warm on caraway-seeded rye bread with a pot of brown deli mustard, accompanied by dill pickles and coleslaw.

Deli mustard, by the way, is an American invention made from coarsely ground mustard seeds. It should have a hint of horseradish. The combination is the perfect accent to fatty pastrami and corned beef—and is delicious on ham, roast beef, turkey and everything else.

In New York, the drink of choice is a can of Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry, Cel-Ray or Cream Soda, regular or diet (we wouldn’t turn down a good beer).

That’s a New York pastrami experience.
 
 
PASTRAMI HISTORY

The name pastrami comes from Romanian pastramă, a derivation of a word that means to conserve food.

Pastrami came to the U.S. with a wave of Jewish immigration from Bessarabia and Romania, in the second half of the 19th century. The word modification “pastrami” likely occurred then.

In the Old Country, Jewish Romanians commonly used goose breasts were to make into pastrami; they were inexpensive.

But in the U.S., beef navel was cheaper than goose, so the Romanian Jewish immigrants adapted their recipe and began to make beef pastrami.

New York’s Sussman Volk is generally credited with creating the first pastrami sandwich, in 1887.

Volk, a kosher butcher and immigrant from Lithuania, claimed he got the recipe from a Romanian friend in exchange for storing the friend’s luggage.

According to his descendant, Patricia Volk, he sold the pastrami on sandwiches at his butcher shop.

The sandwich was so popular that Volk converted the butcher shop into a restaurant to sell pastrami sandwiches [source].
 
 
PASTRAMI TRAVELS WEST…NORTH…AND SOUTH

As pastrami traveled to different cities, it was “adapted”—to the horror of a New York deli purist—to include Italian rolls, soft rolls giardiniera, even (gasp!) marinara sauce and mayonnaise. The Kansas-style brisket with barbecue sauce was added to the list.

These versions are what Jewish New Yorkers call goyishem, meaning “in the manner or style of a non-Jewish person.”

For the sake of our mother, grandmother, and every other cook in our line, we offer some modern yiddishe enhancements, “in the manner or style of Jewish foodies.”
 
 
MODERN PASTRAMI SANDWICH VARIATIONS

You can get creative with a pastrami sandwich without violating any Geneva Food Convention. You can add or substitute without abusing the New York pastrami tradition.

We mean, you can modernize it. We’re not talking wasabi mustard, pickled jalapeños, or pesto, just some logical extensions, some borrowed from the Reuben (see below).

Our favorite: pastrami on rye or pumpernickel with melted gruyere and caramelized onions. Plus the deli mustard and sides of pickles and coleslaw.
 
Toppings

 
Condiments

 
Bread

Alas, our taste buds can’t go so far as pastrami on a baguette or any crunchy or flavored roll. Not even brioche.

Although some day soon, we’ll try it in a pita pocket.
 
 
THE RACHEL SANDWICH, A REUBEN VARIATION

A Reuben sandwich is an enhanced corned beef sandwich, grilled or toasted on rye or pumpernickel with generous amounts of corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and either Russian or Thousand Island dressing.

There are other Reuben variations, for example, substituting turkey and coleslaw for pastrami and sauerkraut.

The Reuben sandwich dates to the late 1920s, but no one can solve the hotly-contested origin.

Most evidence points to Reuben Kulakofsky, a Lithuanian-born grocer and resident of Omaha, Nebraska who created the now-classic sandwich for his poker pals who had a regular poker game at the Blackstone Hotel. The hotel owner liked it so much he put it on the menu.

Native New Yorkers firmly believe that credit goes to Arnold Reuben, owner of a deli on 58th Street between Madison and Park Avenues, in 1928. But either way, you can celebrate National Pastrami Sandwich day and think of them when you enjoy a Rachel.

________________

*Russian Dressing vs. Thousand Island Dressing: The main difference between the two is that Thousand Island dressing has pickle relish (the “thousand islands”), giving it more sweetness and texture. It is made with mayonnaise and ketchup. Russian Dressing is made from mayonnaise and chili sauce, and is more piquant. Some people add a bit of prepared horseradish for more spice.
 
 

These healthful snacks—bananas, peanut butter and a second fruit—have so much pizzazz that we think they can go right to the dessert plate.

You can use any flavor of peanut butter (check out these flavors from PB & Co.—dark or white chocolate, honey, pumpkin spice).

If you’re not a PB or other nut butter fan, turn your sights to another sauce or spread:

 
For garnishes, consider:

 
For a DIY experience, put all the toppings on the table and let everyone create his/her own.

[1] & [2] Decorate bananas for snacking and dessert (photos courtesy Crazy Richard’s Peanut Butter).

 
 
HERE’S MORE BANANA FUN & THE HISTORY OF BANANAS.